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You hear about Mayor Rob Ford returning every constituent’s phone call? He does.

Or at least he or one of his staff do.

But this was a first as far as I know.

A special caller.

But before we get into it, let me tell you some background.

I was down in Niagara Region on Saturday with my little boy Joshua and Maritess when I got a call from Justin “Shaker” Van Dette that the mayor allegedly had been assaulted.

Details were scarce and I was concerned for him. No matter what happens, I like the mayor personally and I remember he is a man with a family.

We don’t want him hurt.

That family has faced strange threats before and I know personally what that is like to go through.

His councillor brother, Doug, and his daughters have also faced threats.

It’s disgraceful. Those guys don’t deserve that. They do need security, I think.

Anyway, I called and left Rob a message.

The mayor has not called me back during the whole “crackgate” soap opera, but I have received calls from staff members. They are always polite and courteous. But this was a call, noonish on Sunday, I was not expecting.

“Were you calling Rob?” said a female voice over the phone.

At first I thought it was a wrong number. Then I remembered that I did call Rob.

“Who is calling?”

“It’s Rob’s wife,” she said.

Turns out it was Renata Ford who decided to chip in and help her husband out by returning some of these calls.

In the 10 years I have known Rob I have never met his wife or talked with her before. I have covered some 911-call stories with her name in them but that’s it.

I introduced myself and then we had a nice little chat.

It was not an interview in the traditional sense.

However, everybody told me they thought it would be interesting to offer some insight into a short conversation with the mayor’s wife — especially since, as the Toronto Sun’s city hall bureau chief Don “Pistol” Peat tells us, she has not given an interview since Ford was elected mayor Oct. 25, 2010.

The first thing I told her is I have never been to their house. Even though I have knocked on the front doors of plenty a private residence over the years, I just think purposely stalking public figures at home over and over again is not fair — particularly for those who have small children as the Fords do.

Renata’s response was not what I expected.

“I kind of feel sorry for them,” she said of the media. “I look out the window sometimes at 6:30 a.m. and I see them. Sometimes it’s raining.”

She said she holds no animosity and certainly does not think of them as “maggots” — a comment her husband so famously apologized for calling them.

“They have a job to do and I know that,” she said. “Everybody has a job to do.”

As for their two young children, Stephanie, 8, and Doug, 5, she said she and Rob keep them sheltered from the glare of public life.

“We have decided to wait until they are older to explain about politics,” she said.

But they have certainly seen the media people on the driveway and the trucks and cameras.

“They are used to the reporters,” said Renata. “They just think they are all there because they really love their father.”

We both had a laugh. Renata was pleasant to talk with.

I asked her about how Rob was doing following the arrest of a woman charged with assault in the alleged tossing of a drink at him and she said “he’s fine” and not overly rattled.

“It’s just one person,” she said.

As for her husband, she said, he’s always busy working and loves serving the city and the taxpayers.

“He’s very passionate,” she said.

Mayor Ford honestly does try to get back to every person who has tried to reach him.

And now, down staff members in recent weeks, his wife Renata is helping him out, too.